At least 14 foreign nationals killed in attacks

US soldiers wait for the truck carrying the bodies of two Japanese diplomats killed in an attack. Photo: AFP

At least 14 foreign nationals, including seven Spanish intelligence officers and two Japanese diplomats, were killed in a spate of weekend attacks in Iraq that sparked world condemnation and vows not to give in to "terrorists."

In the latest such attack on so-called "soft targets," two South Koreans were killed and two others seriously wounded in an attack on a highway near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the South Korean foreign ministry said, cited by the official Yonhap news agency.

The US military also said a Colombian contractor was killed in northern Iraq yesterday, following the killings of two American soldiers near the Syrian border, capping the deadliest month for US-led forces in Iraq.

The members of Spain's National Intelligence Centre were killed yesterday in an ambush south of Baghdad and an eighth agent was injured.

Despite opposition calls for the Spanish contingent to be brought home Aznar said: "We will fulfill our commitments with loyalty and serenity."

The wave of violence came just as US Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez hailed US President George W Bush's surprise visit to Iraq and a relative lull in fighting as marking "a great two weeks for the coalition".

The killings sparked worldwide condemnation.

Britain's Foreign Office described the attack on the Spaniards as "vicious" while in Paris, President Jacques Chirac expressed France's "sympathy and full solidarity in this tragic ordeal".

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer condemned "the criminal attacks and aggression that have again targeted foreign citizens in Iraq."

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters he was angry at the killings of the two diplomats, fatally shot with their Iraqi driver this afternoon as they stopped for food on a highway near Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

Koizumi added his support for the US-led reconstruction was unwavering and that Japan's plan of sending troops there "has not changed."

Japan has said it would send troops to help with humanitarian and reconstruction needs to non-combat zones in Iraq, but only when the security situation permits.

South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck identified the two nationals killed as civilians who worked for a South Korean electrical company on a contract for the US military.

"At the moment we can't approach the scene. Tomorrow afternoon we will find out more information," he told reporters in Seoul about the incident likely to fuel uncertainty over South Korea's involvement in Iraqi reconstruction.

A Colombian civilian contractor was also shot dead and two colleagues wounded in an attack on a convoy in northern Iraq, a US army commander said.

"Yesterday morning near Balad one civilian contractor, a citizen of Colombia, was killed and two associates were wounded when attackers using small calibre weapons fired on a convoy," US military deputy director for operations Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a Baghdad press conference.

He gave no further details of the attack near the town about 60 kilometres north of the capital.

Kimmitt said Iraqi insurgents were increasingly targeting "softer targets" such as Iraqi and foreign civilians after they felt the brunt of US operations launched recently in north-central Iraq and around Baghdad.

Yesterday, Sanchez had said the crackdown cut the number of insurgency attacks by more then 30 per cent over the past two weeks.

But the bad news for US forces kept coming in what has been the bloodiest month for them in Iraq since May 1 when Bush announced an end to major combat operations.

Two US soldiers were killed and a third wounded when their convoy came under rocket-propelled and small arms fire yesterday on the main highway through the Euphrates valley near the Syrian border.

The soldiers from the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment were ambushed east of the troubled border town of Husaybah, said a statement from their headquarters.

"Confirmed reports are that two US soldiers were killed and one wounded," the regional command said. "The wounded soldier was subsequently medivaced to a nearby field hospital."

The latest casualties made November the deadliest month for the coalition since the six-week invasion launched in March, with 94 military dead and another eight civilians.

Meanwhile, three Iraqis died today when a bomb they were planting by a roadside blew up prematurely west of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

The blast on a road used by US military convoys in the Hawijah region 50 kilometres west of Kirkuk, said 2nd Lieutenant Wathban Sultan al-Juamyli.

One man planting the bomb and two accomplices waiting in a car were all killed by the blast, he said.

On the economic front, Iraq's US-installed Governing Council also appealed to the international community to speed up the rescheduling of the towering debt accumulated by the ousted regime.